Direct Synthesis of Dimethyl Carbonate and Propylene Glycol Using Potassium Bicarbonate As Catalyst in Supercritical CO2
62 Pol. J. Chem. Tech.,Polish Vol. Journal 17, No. of Chemical1, 2015 Technology, 17, 1, 62 — 65, 10.1515/pjct-2015-0010 Direct synthesis of dimethyl carbonate and propylene glycol using potassium bicarbonate as catalyst in supercritical CO2 Yicun Wen1, Rui Zhang1*, Yu Cang1, Jianchao Zhang1, Lixiao Liu1, Xuhong Guo1, Bin Fan2* 1 East China University of Science and Technology, State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, Shanghai, 200237, P. R. China 2Chinese Academy of Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Environmental Aquatic Chemistry, Research Center for Eco- -Environmental Sciences, Beijing 100085, China *Corresponding authors: e-mail: r.zhang@edust.edu.cn, fanbin@rcees.ac.cn The improved one-pot synthesis of dimethyl carbonate and propylene glycol from propylene oxide, supercritical carbon dioxide, and methanol with potassium bicarbonate as the catalyst has been reported in this paper. As far as we know, it is the fi rst time to use potassium bicarbonate only as the catalyst in the production process which is simple and cheap. Satisfactory conversion rate of propylene oxide and yield of the products could be achieved at the optimized conditions with quite a small amount of by-products. Our new method offers an attractive choice for the production of dimethyl carbonate in large-scale industry effi ciently and environmental friendly. Keywords: direct synthesis, dimethyl carbonate, carbon dioxide, potassium bicarbonate, supercritical fl uids. INTRODUCTION due to the noble metal catalyst. So the exploration of new clean ways for DMC synthesis is urgent. Because carbon dioxide (CO ) is an abundant, ine- 2 Direct synthesis routes of DMC from transesterifi cation xpensive, and nontoxic biorenewable resource, it is an of cyclic carbonates is a new proposal to this problem attractive raw material for incorporation into important which employs two original chemicals, CO and methanol, industrial processes.
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